Chapter 12
12
STEVIE
For a moment she’d thought that Carina and Moira were going to fob her off with sanitised niceties and refuse to share that part of their lives with her and she wouldn’t have blamed them. But no. Carina had poured the sparkling wine, and Moira had come back with two photo albums. The chips and mayonnaise had been delivered, and Carina was taking advantage of this to tease Moira. ‘Chips? I take it you’ve still never heard of an avocado then, Moira? Maybe a nice salad didn’t tempt you?’
‘Ignore her,’ Moira said to Stevie. ‘She was brought up without any appreciation of the humble chip. It’s a shame really. Being that posh has deprived her of so much joy.’
Stevie was already coming to realise that these women had a relationship built on a basis of friendship and affectionately mocking each other for laughs. It reminded her of the easy banter and bond she’d always had with Caleb.
When she’d got back to her room last night, she’d received a text from Caleb saying:
NO CONTACT FOR FIFTEEN HOURS. SEND PROOF OF LIFE IMMEDIATELY.
She’d given him a quick call to fill him in on everything that had happened since he’d dropped her at Dublin Airport, before carrying on with Gilda and Keli to the ferry. They’d got home safely and when she’d phoned him, Caleb was heading to work to start his evening shift. The time difference was taking a bit of getting used to. As was the fact that she was here. When she’d got the call about her mum and left the hospital that day, she would never have dreamt that just three weeks later she’d be in a flash hotel in Hong Kong with two strangers. ‘You know, I keep thinking how much better mum’s life would have been if these two women had been in it for the last thirty-odd years. Why did she choose solitude and a quiet life? None of this makes sense, Caleb.’
‘Maybe that’s because you don’t know the whole story yet. Keep an open mind, hon. And if you need me, just holler. I’ve got a credit card and I’m not afraid to use it.’
She’d hung up, thinking that everyone should have a mate like that. And he was right. Here she was, her mind open, and ready to listen.
When they were organised and had chips in hand, Moira kicked off with, ‘Where do you want us to start?’
‘At the beginning, I guess,’ Stevie said.
Carina had responded to that by explaining that her and mum had both been here for several months before Moira arrived, living in a run-down hotel on the other side of the harbour.
‘And what were you doing here? Just working in bars or something?’
Both Moira and Carina had looked at her like she’d grown another head. ‘We were all performers, signed to a crappy agency that put us up in that hellish accommodation and paid us buttons, but we did it because we loved it and we were cool as anything. Of course, those were the days when I could get into size 12 leather trousers, and I still had full mobility in my hips.’
What???? Just when Stevie thought she had a handle on this story it took a sharp left turn. ‘What do you mean, “performers”? Like, exotic dancers?’
Moira nearly spluttered her prosecco across the room. ‘My hips weren’t quite that bendy, I’m afraid.’
Carina took up the story. ‘Moira was a singer, she had a nightly show in the bar downstairs – that’s why we’re staying here – and she used to pack them in. I was her piano player…’
‘And what did my mum do?’
For the second time, she’d stunned the two of them into silence. She was beginning to feel like she was in some kind of parallel universe, where everyone knew what was going on except her. Which was, actually, a pretty accurate way to describe this.
‘Stevie, how do you think you got your name?’ Carina asked her, and Stevie could sense it was a loaded question, but she couldn’t quite understand why.
‘Because my mum’s favourite song was “Landslide” by Stevie Nicks and she thought that was a cool name.’
‘Oh Jesus, Carina, you’ll need to take this one,’ Moira said, fanning her face with her hand. ‘I’m feeling a hot flush coming on and I was through the menopause years ago.’
Carina visibly took a sharp breath, before she began to speak.
‘My other job – because I had two gigs, unlike this slacker here,’ she gestured to Moira, ‘Was that I played the role of Christine McVie in a Fleetwood Mac tribute act.’
‘I bet my mum loved that,’ Stevie interjected.
Carina was still speaking calmly but clearly, as if she were explaining a really difficult maths problem. Or nuclear physics.
‘She did. But that’s because your mum played the part of Stevie Nicks in the band. And every single night she went out on the stage and she was – excuse my language – fricking sensational.’
Now it was Stevie’s turn to splutter. ‘My mum was a singer?’
‘You didn’t know this?’
‘No.’ Scratch the earlier statement – this was far more complicated than nuclear physics.
‘Wait… You never heard Lisa sing?’ That came from Moira, who was now pulling at the neck of her navy sundress so that she could fan her chest.
‘Only a few times late at night when I was in bed. I’d hear a record go on and then I’d hear her humming away or singing a few bars. I had no idea she’d ever done that professionally, never mind be… “fricking sensational”.’
‘She was more than that,’ Moira said, wistfully. ‘She commanded every stage she stepped on. No one could take their eyes off her because she had that thing that only the brilliant ones have. If she’d been starting out in the last ten years or so she’d have gone on The X Factor and she’d have won the whole damn thing. She was that good. I can’t believe she gave it up.’ That last statement was aimed at Carina, who looked just as astonished.
‘I can’t believe that’s what she did in the first place,’ Stevie replied, dumbfounded. She just wanted to sob. Her mum was a singer? When were the surprises going to stop? ‘Do you have any photos of her on stage?’
Moira flicked through a couple of pages in the album and then turned it around. Stevie’s breath got caught in her throat. It was like looking in a mirror. The face. The height. Even the style of clothes that she wore. Stevie loved to shop in vintage boutiques and she’d no idea she’d somehow been channelling her mother and her namesake in their younger days.
‘You look so like her,’ Moira said, her eyes welling up again. She started fanning her face again. ‘Jesus, I’m a mess. I’m sorry. I promise I’m usually very calm and collected and in full control of my emotions. Except when I watch Call The Midwife , but that’s only to be expected.’
Stevie was staring at the photo again. ‘People have always said that we’re alike and I could see the similarities, but there was such a big age difference that I never really understood.’
‘Do you look like your dad too?’ Carina asked.
‘I don’t think so, although I haven’t seen him since I was really young. After he and mum got divorced, he went to Canada and built a whole new family there. I speak to him a couple of times a year on the phone – birthdays and Christmas – and I’ve thought about going over a couple of times, but he’s never seemed particularly keen so it hasn’t happened. He’s pretty disinterested, to be honest, but that’s never bothered me because it’s just the way it’s always been. Mum said we were far better off without him, just the two of us against the world.’ That was all true. What she didn’t say was that at the same time, her mum kept an emotional distance from her too. That there was an anxiety there that Stevie couldn’t explain.
‘He never mentioned that Mum was a singer, so maybe he didn’t know either. Maybe she just kept this whole chapter of her life a secret from everyone. I can’t believe she kept this hidden from me. All of it, but especially the singing. You know, the crazy thing is that when I was a kid, I wanted to be Britney Spears. Or one of the Spice Girls. I had a really good voice, always got the lead parts in the school shows, and I wanted to sing, but Mum wouldn’t let me. She said it was a waste of time, and I should do something more useful. She pushed me into sport, running, nutrition – all the things that were good for me. And yet all that time there was this.’ She pointed at the photo of her mum behind a microphone, her eyes alive, her mouth open, her hair drenched in sweat, her body curved as if she was belting out a high note. She looked like an absolute rock star. Her mum. Lisa Dixon. From their tiny little village in Ireland. A rock star. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to understand this.’
Neither of them argued with her, and she suspected they felt the same.
They spent the rest of the afternoon looking through all the photos, the ladies taking it in turns to give some background, to tell her an anecdote or explain who was in the picture if there were other people there. Her mum on stage. Her mum on the Star Ferry (she’d read about that, but she hadn’t ventured out to see it yet). Her mum at various places on the island. Her mum in bed. In a bar. Snogging some guy. Snogging another guy. Having drinks with her friends. Dancing on tables. Dancing in a nightclub. Dancing in the street. So much dancing, so much singing, so much laughing, so much drinking. It was almost as if she’d packed her whole life into one year and then become a totally different person. The medical professional inside her was beginning to wonder if Lisa had taken a bang to the head. Why give this up to return to her home town, get married, settle down and live an anonymous life? What happened to her to prompt such a change in direction? Why give up a good time for an existence of uneventful solitude? Definitely a bang to the head in there somewhere. Or had something awful happened? Something that made her return to Ireland and change her whole life?
Room service had made two more trips with sustenance by the time they’d turned the last leaf of the albums, and Stevie felt exhausted. She could see that the others did too. Moira suggested they get some fresh air, by taking their drinks out onto the roof terrace and Stevie went on out while Moira and Carina refilled their glasses.
The sun was beginning to go down over the harbour when they joined her just a few moments later, taking the two loungers to her left.
Carina inhaled the night air and stretched out her body. Stevie would bet a week’s wages that she did yoga, Pilates and had a personal trainer. It was pretty obvious that she was very wealthy. It wasn’t just the cut-glass accent. It was the Hermes sandals and the YSL sunglasses, while Moira had already shared that she’d bought her dress in the H&M sale.
Carina turned to face her. ‘I just realised that I asked you earlier about your plans for this week and we got interrupted before you could answer.’
It was a great question, but one that she didn’t have an answer to. ‘I’m not really sure. I hadn’t actually got past getting here and meeting you both, and finding out what my mum was up to. I think that was as much as my poor overloaded brain could handle this week. But now that I’m here, I think I’ll perhaps explore the island. Maybe check out some of the places in those photos of Mum, just to share that with her. Does that sound crazy?’
‘Not at all,’ Moira said, with an understanding smile. ‘The thing is, though, when I planned this week, it was all about a bit of nostalgia. I wanted to revisit my past and see if I could recreate those feelings that I had back then. That excitement and optimism that gets kicked out of you by life as you get older.’
‘If this is supposed to be a motivational speech, you’re doing a terrible job,’ Carina cut in, deadpan. ‘Don’t ever do a Ted Talk.’
Once again, Moira handled the dig with pursed lips of amusement. Stevie loved the easy banter between them.
‘Anywaaaay,’ Moira said pointedly, with a bit of side-eye in her friend’s direction, ‘We were talking inside, and we wondered if you’d like to spend some time with us? We can show you what your mum’s life here was like. Take you to those places she went to and share what happened there. We did some pretty cool things back then – be great to go back and do it all again.’
Stevie was incredibly touched, but she immediately realised she couldn’t accept.
‘Thank you so much for the offer, but I couldn’t do that because it would be such an imposition on your holiday. I could tell by your letter how much you were looking forward to this week, Moira, and how much you wanted to share it with your friends. And the fact that it actually got my mum out of the house shows how much it meant to her too. I can’t gatecrash that – it wouldn’t be fair.’
This time it was Carina who stepped in with the Ted Talk, Part Two.
‘Stevie, you wouldn’t be gatecrashing because there are no expectations for us this week. It’s not like we had some spiritual event planned. The truth is that we’re here because Moira is having a mid-life crisis and a few nights ago, on my thirty-fourth wedding anniversary, I caught my husband having sex. And not with me. So trust me when I say you’re not spoiling anything. We’d love to have you here with us.’
‘Oh bloody hell – I’m so sorry about your husband.’
Carina sighed. ‘Me too. But that’s for another day. Tell us you’ll come hang out with us and let us share endless stories about your lovely mum. To be honest, it would maybe help us to deal with what’s happened too.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘We’re absolutely sure.’
She thought about it, but only for a second because she was still desperate to know the answers to so many questions that were floating around in her mind.
What was her mum’s life like here? Why did she leave? And what happened here that was so terrible she never talked about it again?